Beautiful Things
by PallaPlease
Summary: A short vignette involving a possible future, Spike, and an empty scotch bottle.  [Complete]


Beautiful Things  
  
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Author's Notes: I honestly don't know what compelled me to write this. I don't like it that much and I feel it has overwhelmingly failed at being creepy. This vignette was written mostly because I had an idea stuck, playing over and over, in my head; as much as I adore Spike/Buffy goop, this stupid idea would not leave me alone. I have the compelling urge to read some fluffy and nauseatingly cute S/B. Try not to flame. (And I apologize beforehand to my best friend Becky, because I know she won't like this. Sorry, Beckster!)  
  
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There was a heavy sort of silence in the room, the pressing kind that enveloped the mind if one stayed in it for too long, giving it a power of sorts. He supposed thoughts like those were going to slowly drive him insane; it wouldn't be the first time he had dealt with insanity. With a frown, he leaned back against the decrepit stonewall, his skin and hair the only things keeping him from blending in with the engulfing darkness. There was a flicking noise and, in a moment, the honey red glow, tiny and a bit dull, of a cigarette lit his lips. If possible, the silence seemed to grow heavier, pushing down on his shoulders.   
  
"Bloody hell," he grunted around the cigarette, readjusting his position and pulling on leg up to his chest. Brooding was becoming an annoying habit of his, one that he had, in the past, relegated to being Angel's specialty. He was none too pleased that he had the tendency as of late to do the same.   
  
Still, tonight was the Anniversary, marking the fifteenth year since, and he felt he had a right to sulk in the dark with the lonely glow of a Camel his only company, trying his damnedest to force away the memory. Almost dreamily, he lifted the empty scotch bottle and stared through the amber brown glass, the opposite wall distorted and stained by it. It made the world murky and curved, as if reality had been bent and changed just for a few drunk seconds. It would be nice, he decided hazily, if reality could be changed that simply, that quickly, and then he wouldn't be mulling over the Anniversary like he had every year, wishing and regretting and trying to drink himself into oblivion before the sun rose.   
  
In the back of his mind, he could hear a whimper, soft and hurt, betrayed, and it rose in pitch momentarily before breaking off in a single, last sigh. A flash of crimson, spilling onto carpeted stairs and staining the faded off-white a horrid shade of dark red. Green-blue eyes, ever-shifting pools of deep seawater, glazing over and lips twisting up in an ironic smile, overlapping the image of blood seeping into thick carpeting and dripping off one step onto the next.   
  
The sharp, high-pitched sound of glass exploding reached his ears, echoing in the near-empty room and stinging his sensitive hearing. Perplexed, he switched his gaze to his hand and was distantly surprised to find the dark bottle of scotch was no longer in it. He supposed, then, that it was the glittering dots on the floor on the other side of the room; it didn't really matter, in any case. Exhaling in an almost sigh, he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and carelessly dropped it to the dirty, cracked cement floor, the glow remaining though it dimmed slowly into nothingness.  
  
Slipping to his feet, he stumbled to the entrance of the dilapidated crypt, jerking open the worn wooden door and shuffling over moonlit grass, his course predetermined and automatic. Her grave was there and he dug his hands into his pockets, not bothering to attempt to quell the hurting, longing feeling somewhere in his gut. He missed her.  
  
"Hello, pet," he said, a trace of unforgotten affection working its way into the words. "Been a while since I stopped by. S'pose I 'pologize 'bout that."   
  
A shaft of moonlight caught a few of the letters on the grave; it lit part of the name he knew by heart.  
  
"Now, Buffy," he continued, shaking his platinum blond head slightly, "don't be like that. Haven't got much to stick around for myself, you know."  
  
The grave was silent and the night was unbroken, a few dark clouds passing over the moon's pale face. Pale streaks of pink and orange lit one side of the sky and he closed his eyes, whispering in part to himself and more than a little to her deaf ears, "Beautiful things are made to be broken."  
  
Some time after dawn, the wind skittered away a trail of dust from the grave.  
  
  
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End AN: Ick. That was awful. Feel free to share opinions. (Hit me with a stick if you feel like it! I think I deserve it after that.) My only excuses are that I wrote it after 11:00 PM, and I had a severe head cold/fever. ;] 


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